4/30/2005
MOGADISHU: Somalia’s prime minister flew to Mogadishu yesterday for the first time since his appointment last year to try to sort out a rift in his government and shore up sagging confidence in efforts to rebuild the broken country.
Under pressure from foreign governments and donors, the interim Transitional Federal Government plans to leave Kenya, where it was formed in December after two years of stop-start peace talks, and return to lawless Somalia.
But cabinet ministers and members of parliament are divided over which city it should initially be based in — a dispute that stems from power struggles among rival clans and, diplomats say, between regional powers vying for dominance in the Horn of Africa nation.
There are also disputes over the possible role of foreign peacekeepers, a sensitive topic in a country where a US-backed UN force was humiliated in a disastrous peace mission in the early 1990s.
The government is the 14th such attempt to restore effective administration to Somalia which plunged into chaos with the 1991 overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.